Abstract: Patient-centered outcomes research (PCOR) aims to empower patients and their caregivers by providing the evidence needed to make truly informed decisions about their health and health care. In November 2012, PCORI’s Board of Governors adopted comprehensive standards for conducting patient-centered outcomes research. The purpose of this webinar is to help researchers understand how the PCORI Methodology Committee hopes the standards will be used to support high quality, scientifically rigorous patient-centered outcomes research, and to provide examples of the standards.

This webinar is part of a mini-course sponsored by PCORI that will take place on June 25, 2013. The mini-course includes this webinar, two related sessions at the ARM, and an in-person workshop.

Joe V. Selby, M.D., M.P.H., is the first Executive Director of the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI). With more than 35 years of experience in patient care, research, and administration, Dr. Selby works as a family physician, clinical epidemiologist and health services researcher. Prior to his position at PCORI, Dr. Selby served as the Director of the Division of Research at Kaiser Permanente, Northern California. He also holds the position of Lecturer in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine, and is a Consulting Professor of Health Research and Policy at the Stanford University School of Medicine.

David Hickam, M.D., M.P.H., is the Program Director of the Assessment of Prevention, Diagnosis, and Treatment Options program at the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI). He is a specialist in internal medicine and has 30 years of experience as a health services researcher. His past research has focused on strategies for improving health care outcomes among adults with chronic diseases. He is responsible for developing PCORI’s research program that evaluates comparisons among alternative clinical strategies in a broad range of clinical domains. He also provides staff support to the PCORI Methodology Committee.

Dr. Hickam previously held the rank of Professor in the Department of Medicine at Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU). He also held a joint faculty appointment in OHSU’s Department of Medical Informatics and Epidemiology. He was a senior investigator in the Oregon Evidence-based Practice Center at OHSU and also served as Co-Director of the health services research and development program at the Portland VA Medical Center. He has expertise in a broad range of both quantitative and qualitative research methodologies. In 2005, he became the founding Director of the John M. Eisenberg Clinical Decisions and Communications Science Center, funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. The Eisenberg Center has developed innovative approaches for helping people use evidence-based information to participate in decision making about their health care.

Dr. Hickam received his bachelor’s degree from Stanford University, an M.D. degree from the University of California San Francisco, and a Master in Public Health from the University of California Berkeley.

Brian Mittman, Ph.D.Dr. Mittman is Senior Advisor, VA Center for Implementation Practice and Research Support, Department of Veterans Affairs Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System, and Senior Scientist at the Kaiser Permanente Department of Research and Evaluation. He holds additional affiliations at the UCLA School of Medicine and the RAND Health Program. Dr. Mittman serves on the Association of American Medical Colleges Advisory Panel on Research and on the editorial board of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality Health Care Innovations Exchange. He chaired the planning committee that launched the journal Implementation Science and is currently Editor in Chief Emeritus. He was a founding member of the Institute of Medicine Forum on the Science of Health Care Quality Improvement and Implementation and is past chair of the NIH Special Emphasis Panel on Dissemination and Implementation Research in Health. Dr. Mittman received a BSE (engineering) from Princeton University, MA in Sociology from Stanford University and a PhD in organizational behavior and management from Stanford University Graduate School of Business.

Sean Tunis, M.D., M.Sc., is the Founder and Director of the Center for Medical Technology Policy, an independent non-profit organization that provides a forum for patients, clinicians, and other decision-makers in order to improve the quality, relevance, and efficiency of health care research, particularly in the areas of CER and PCOR. He was a member of the Institute of Medicine Committee on Initial National Priorities for Comparative Effectiveness Research, and has served as the Chief Medical Officer at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Dr. Tunis holds adjunct faculty positions at Johns Hopkins, Stanford and the University of California San Francisco Schools of Medicine.

*The Methodology mini-course and webinar are co-sponsored by PCORI.

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